On Monday, BTS was caught in a controversy following RM's speech that tackles the relationship of South Korea to the United States during the Korean War. Several Chinese netizens express their anger towards the alleged insensitive message; thus, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released their stand about the growing issue.
The issue sparked when the world-famous K-pop group BTS attended the prestigious James A. Van Fleet Awards Ceremony, and accepted the highest honor along with the war veterans from Korea and Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
In the same event, they deliver their speech through broadcast, and the controversial speech of RM says that the Annual event became more meaningful as it was awarded to them in the same year that they are commemorating the 70th year of the Korean war.
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The leader of the stellar group also added, "We will always remember the history of pain that our two nations shared together and the sacrifices of countless men and women," giving honors to the Koreans and Americans who lost their lives amidst the fight of separation of South Korea to North Korea.
However, Chinese netizens and fans who received the speech were tremendously offended by the speech, as during the war, lots of Chinese also sacrificed their lives while helping North Korea along with the Soviet Union.
Due to this, BTS members were condemned by Chinese through Weibo, telling them to leave China (don't promote in the country), while Chinese ARMYs also received negative feedbacks from Chinese netizens and the issue was putting them into a tight spot, as the Korean war is extremely a sensitive topic for the said country.
As the controversy gets bigger, Zhao Li Jian, the deputy director of the Foreign Ministry Information Department of the People's Republic of China, gives his statement regarding the controversial speech.
"I had carefully considered the significant reports and articles, and also learn through the reactions from Chinese netizens. I want to convey the need to be knowledgeable about history, look towards the future, give importance to love and peace, promote friendship, and these should be everyone's goals. These are worth us joining hands in hard work."
Nevertheless, despite the careful statement from foreign affairs, Chinese netizens are still furious and frustrated.
On Weibo, various netizens have negative views over BTS.
"We gave up enough ego, and Foreign affairs already responded."
"Too formal to respond, you think too highly of them."
Big Hit Entertainment is yet to give its official statement, and Chinese netizens and fans are also waiting for a formal apology from BTS and its agency.
Meanwhile, Samsung China and FILA China were also notified by the controversy, and allegedly deleted every BTS-related content on their official site and social media accounts. The page containing endorsed products of BTS is not found anymore, and the recent posts uploaded by FILA China were also removed.
On the other hand, non-Chinese ARMYs (fandom of BTS) and netizens are confused as to why people of China were fussing over the topic, defending RM and BTS that the speech doesn't mean to offend anyone and it was only delivered to point out the relationship of US and Korea.
